Worlds Beyond Number

World Beyond Number’s storytelling is unmatched. Brennan (the GM) and the rest of the cast work together masterfully to tell a story that’s beautiful, epic, exciting, wholesome, deep and profound. Throughout, it leverages one of D&D’s great strengths—that it’s founded on improvisation. They have made a specific choice to tell their story in a form founded on improvisation, because of the incredible authenticity and genuineness that that brings. WBN completely raises the bar of narrative D&D. One of D&D’s main flaws is the extent to which the mechanics can get in the way of the narrative. Brennan and the rest of the cast take every bit of D&D—how spells work, how combat works, character creation, rolling stats—and made it deeper, more complex, more meaningful. For example, with character creation: Most D&D campaigns just have the characters all meet and get introduced episode 1, then they all start adventuring together, etc etc. If you think about it, it’s really narratively lacking. But with WBN they turn the concept of character creation into a mini prequel campaign—8 beautiful episodes of them as children meeting and bonding in an adventure over the course of one summer. We get to see the very roots of the characters, who later are the 3 main characters of the main, epic campaign (when they’re ~20 years old). Also, the sound design is amazing. Listen with headphones, and just enjoy the sounds. 🙂

Cannot be beat

Collaborative storytelling at its best!! I can’t wait for each episode to come out, and I’m totally enthralled by the world these four are weaving together!! Incredible sound design too! Thank youuuu to everyone involved in making this amazing podcast!

I came to see what these powerhouses of actual play would put together and I am floored. Their collaborative storytelling is alchemical: creating a story bigger and more felt than I could have imagined. In The WWW, Brennan’s world feels so rich and lived in. His descriptions of external and internal state are so good you can taste them. You feel like there’s always more behind every NPC, location, and situation. Lou, Aabria, and Erika’s PCs are all so complex and interesting and they interact with each other in the flawed, but heartfelt way that real people interact with their loved ones. This combined with the frosting of incredible sound design that somehow gets better every episode! I can’t wait to see how this story unfolds and I hope there are many more stories to follow!